Measuring the Quality of Instructional Activities Reflected in Student Science Notebooks

• In Event: Roundtable Session 20
  In Roundtable Session: Literacy, Texts, and Language Arts: Connections to Science Education

Abstract

Classroom instruction has often been cited as a key driver for promoting student learning, yet attempts to devise systematic strategies for measuring pedagogical practices remain rare. Instead of using questionnaires, interviews, or observations, this study explored the feasibility of using students’ science notebooks to measure the quality of teacher’s inquiry-based instruction, specifically conducting the investigation and reporting/organizing the investigation data. Coding criteria were developed to capture and reflect the quality of teacher’s instruction. The findings indicated the coding system could be reliably used by raters. The notebook codes accurately reflected the quality of teacher’s daily instruction of classroom practices. In addition, the notebook scores significantly correlated with student performance measured by other assessment tools in the regression analysis.

Authors

• Ming-Chih Lan, University of Washington

• Min Li, University of Washington

• Maria Araceli Ruiz-Primo, University of Colorado - Denver